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One of the few blessings of the Obama Administration is that it’s failed fast enough to count. If the president’s withdrawal from Iraq hadn’t been quite so rushed, things might have stayed tolerable long enough for the blame could be put on his successor’s shoulders. And as Peter Suderman
What a bitter pill: that we’re thankful POTUS is failing fast enough that he might possibly almost come close to bearing a scintilla of blame for his actions as chief executive.
Some credit where it is due. This problem was forseen by Obamacare’s architects and they built in federal reimbursement for the private insurers.
The Republicans in the Senate, I believe led by Sen. Rubio, carved out the ability for the federal government to reimburse these losses. Absent that legislation this would not be a story.
Hard to say what comes of the ACA, but given the number of Republicans intent on fixing it I expect this malignant tumor to fester much longer.
I want to think this is the case, but given that history tends to be written by progressives and the media of the day I expect no criticism whatsoever outside of the fact that he didn’t use even more executive orders and force bigger programs through Congress when Democrats held both houses.
Wow! A failed government program. Let’s look it up in the old book of How To Fix Government Mistakes (Secret Edition) .. give me a minute .. reading .. reading .. Oh. Here it is. I’ll read out loud so everyone can hear it:
We should call him Teflon Obama. I doubt that this disaster will tarnish his image. We have seen so many failures and yet his numbers are decent. Makes no sense, unless you’re on the Left. They love the man.
There’s a basic fallacy Progressives operate on: History is written by the winners.
It’s not really true. History is written by those who have long survived the winners and their idiocy. The problem is that someone first has to survive it. Progressives are absolutely certain that they can make the world operate the way they want it to work, not the way it really works. They’re repeatedly beating their foreheads against the brick wall of reality hoping to make a dent.
We’re the lucky ones who are saddled with cleaning up the mess.
Are you suggesting that those cruel Republicans should roll back the health care gains for the lower and middle class and deny continued, expanded funding for health care just to fund tax breaks for the rich and corporations? Clearly the thoughtful, complex market-based approach Obama crafted has failed simply because the private sector did not step up and the only fair choice is now a public option. The market had its chance and it failed.
I think even a repulsive figure like Hillary could sell the above BS to over 51% of the people (and 96% of the MSM). Barring some unforeseen intervening event, the ratchet is gonna turn left more than a few notches.
Smart campaigns would run countless emotional daytime tv ads on the negative economic impact ACA has had on middle class families.
Trump so far: #crickets.
I can tell this was from Reason, instead of the New York Times, because of the lack of the word “unexpectedly” when talking about problems with ACA.
Also, use of numbers in a coherent fashion, but why quibble
“Smart campaigns” are in it to win. Mr Trump is not.
My heart bleeds peanut butter for the large players insurance industry. They made a deal with the devil and can reap the whirlwind. I refuse retired health insurance CEO’s in my practice yet welcome trial lawyers. Truly, it’s happened.
Whatever Clinton brings us will stink beyond belief. I am curious if anyone has thought about what Her stated plans are and what Her actual plans are. There’s a storm coming Dorothy.
“Failing while it counts”: very good point.
A good reason I would never be nominated for President is that I couldn’t resist trolling Obama and the Dems.
“Some people say the ACA needs to be fixed, others are saying we need to go to a public option. I reject this false choice.”
Liberals learn almost as fast as they fail, right? It’s never about the substance of the thing. Iraq was ideology or stupidity or indifference, but Obama care was designed to collapse into a single payer. It may yet do that.
My job is a data designer, which means I have to take multiple moving parts and coordinate them into a funtioning unity. There’s a skill in such designing, like in any choreography … you have anticipate where each moving part is going to be at any one time, and direct its next move to be coherent with every other moving part.
But this is what ObamaCare looks like to me:
Whether the insurance companies or we taxpayers pay for the losses, it’s still a big mess. I’m glad the Republicans took us off the hook so the failings of the ACA became more readily transparent.
My memory may be faulty, but as I recall what Rubio did was not to take something away but to block extension of the reimbursement that was provided in the original legislation. Either way, it’s a win.
(edited – twice! – for spelling. Bad dey.)
You have a better memory and facts than me. I just remember that was the crowning legislative achievement.
“Rather than the often repeated adage that the victors write the history of an event, the story of anything is actually determined by the unswerving adoption of one version of it, and the telling of that version by a determined cadre of writers. In time, the version with the most persistent adherents becomes the “truth.” “– David & Jeanne Heidler in Henry Clay: The Essential American (2010)
The unswerving version comes from the media, so Obama is the winner, no matter what. Even when reporting on specific problems with Obamacare, outlets like the NY Times treat them as minor flaws to be fixed, with the fixes involving more government intervention. You will never get the needed criticism of the very structure of Obamacare, as a top-down centralized solution.
If Hillary is elected and the Democrats take control of Congress, we will have Obamacare reform in the shape of more government control.
We are off the hook in the short run.
Your bill is in the mail.
Speaking of which, on July 12, the Times ran “Cost, Not Choice, Is Top Concern of Health Care Customers” containing this priceless gem:
I wrote more about the article (and two other recent Times pieces) here.
Unfortunately progressives have a different measure of success and failure. The point of Obamacare was never to provide more cost effective insurance or get more people covered, it was to nationalize the health care sector. The inevitable “failures” we have been experiencing simply provide reasons to get the government even more involved, until the point we have full-blown socialized medicine.
That’s the joy of the inevitable quality of history in Marxist terms: Whatever happens, it’s always a reason to further the revolution. Those who measure “success” or “failure” in classical terms, e.g. with respect to the immediate practical consequences of action, don’t understand how Marxists like Obama think of themselves and history.
That would require money, something the Trump campaign seems to have very little of.
Meanwhile I just saw a Hillary ad featuring Letterman interviewing Trump and pointing out that his shirts were made in Bangladesh and his ties in China. I’ve seen this ad 3 times in the past week.
This is the first time I remember not watching the Olympics except for maybe a half hour of Phelps last week. In that 30 minutes I saw 3 Hillary Ads. Any campaign that didn’t plan to advertise during the Olympics is suspect at best, more likely negligent.
There will be countless post mortems on Trump’s general campaign, and as of right now they will all be case studies of what not to do.
Exactly.